Waveguides have been employed in a variety of application, and, as a part of the physics of a waveguide, proper coupling is an important issue. With most low frequency applications, this type of coupling between an antenna and a waveguide can be relatively easily accomplished. However, with high frequency applications (such as millimeter wave or terahertz radiation), coupling can be problematic because the alignment precision can be quite high (and quite costly). Therefore, there is a need for a simpler alignment structure so as to be able to couple an antenna to a waveguide for high frequency applications.
Some examples of conventional systems are: U.S. Patent Pre-Grant Publ. No. 2008/0309577; U.S. Patent Pre-Grant Publ. No. 2011/0309899; PCT Publ. No. WO2011030277; Chen et al., “Sub-Wavelength Elliptical Patch Antenna Loaded With μ-Negative Metamaterials,” IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 58, No. 9, September 2010, pp. 2909-2919; Beer et al., “Probe Based Radiation Pattern Measurements for Highly Integrated Millimeter Wave Antennas,” Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), 2010 Proceedings of the Fourth European Conference on, vol., no., pp. 1-5, 12-16 Apr. 2010; and Thomas et al. “Progress towards an integrated 380 GHz planar Schottky diode heterodyne receiver on single substrate,” Proceedings of the 18th International Symp. on Space THz Technology, ISSTT2007, Caltech, Pasadena, Calif., SA, March 2007.